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What They're Saying About Speaker Paul Ryan and the House GOP's Health Care Bill

Posted March 7, 2017

Nearly 24 hours after introducing the long-awaited House Republican plan to snatch away health care for millions of Americans, Speaker Paul Ryan hasn't seen a warm reception to his conference's bill. Even members of Ryan's own conservative movement are turning up their nose at a bill that provides no cost or coverage details, but prioritizes huge tax giveaways to CEO's, insurance companies, and those at the very top.

Don't take our word for it, here's what voices in Wisconsin and across the nation are saying:

AP:Jon Peacock, research director for Wisconsin Children and Families, said the plan "would very significantly increase the number of people in Wisconsin who are uninsured." "We are especially concerned that it will increase health care costs for seniors and low-income families, and will begin a process of substantially cutting federal funding for Medicaid," he said.

AP, cont'd: "It's not as bad as it could be, but it's pretty bad," said Bobby Peterson, executive director of ABC for Health, a nonprofit Madison law firm that helps people get health care. He called the bill a "step backwards." Peterson said one of the most concerning elements of the proposal is that it would limit total federal Medicaid funding to a formula taking into account enrollment and costs in each state. "I see health care rationing and health care segregation," Peterson said.

The Hill: The Club for Growth dubbed the proposal “RyanCare” and threatened to record names of Republicans who vote for the bill unless it includes significant changes.

The Hill, cont'd:Heritage Action, FreedomWorks and the Koch brothers-backed Americans for Prosperity, a group aligned with billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch, also issued scathing statements highly critical of the "American Health Care Act," which was released on Monday. FreedomWorks panned the GOP bill as "ObamaCare-Lite," while AFP labeled it "ObamaCare 2.0."

NYT: “This is not the Obamacare repeal bill we’ve been waiting for. It is a missed opportunity and a step in the wrong direction,” said Senator Mike Lee, Republican of Utah, who was joined by a constellation of conservative groups, including the Club for Growth, Heritage Action for America and Charles G. and David H. Koch’s Americans for Prosperity. “We promised the American people we would drain the swamp and end business as usual in Washington. This bill does not do that.”

WaPo (via Denver Post): Michael Cannon, an influential analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute who helped Republicans slow down the expansion of the ACA in red states, wrote Tuesday morning that the AHCA would yoke the party to a weaker version of the ACA that was designed to fail.

WaPo (via Denver Post) cont'd:“Flubbing ObamaCare would at once united and embolden Democrats while dividing the GOP base, driving the former to the polls in 2018 and 2020 while causing the latter to stay home,” Cannon said. “If ObamaCare is not doing well, and Republicans take the blame, it will create the potential for the sort of wave election Democrats experienced in 2008, when they captured not just the House and the presidency, but a filibuster-proof, 60-vote supermajority in the Senate. If that happens, and ObamaCare is not doing well, Democrats will be less interested in rescuing ObamaCare than repealing and replacing it themselves-with a single-payer system.”